Debates: Education

The case: Teaching creationism in US schools

On April 11 2012, Tennessee passed a law that will protect teachers who choose to explore the merits of creationism alongside theories of evolution in public school science classes. Governor Bill Haslam claimed that the legislation would not...

Nearly every country in the developed world provides both free primary and secondary education. Such education is generally uncontroversial and accepted as necessary by both liberals and conservatives. In the case of higher education however, there is disagreement concerning the state­...

Home schooling is the education of children at home. The practice is legal in most countries but the extent to which it is practised varies. Within Europe, for example in the Netherlands parents have a duty to send their children to a school, and Germany forbade home schooling until recent...

Breakfast, the first meal of the day is a vitally important especially for school students, yet in deprived neighbourhoods there are many who go to school hungry. This debate proposes to end this by having schools provide a meal for every one of their pupils at the start of each day. The...

Military recruitment has diversified in recent years to include the use of schools as a platform for the armed services to present to school children on future opportunities for employment. Though not altogether unheard of previously, in the United States it has become a particularly debated...

Nearly every country in the developed world, and more and more in the developing world, provide free primary and secondary education. Such education is generally uncontroversial and accepted as necessary by both liberals and conservatives around the world. In the case of university education,...

Homework is a task (often called an assignment) set by teachers for students to do outside normal lessons – usually at home in the evening. Schools have been setting homework in developed countries for over a century, but until the past few decades usually only older students had to do it...

Single-sex schools are schools that only admit those of one specific gender, believing that the educational environment fostered by a single gender is more conducive to learning than a co-educational school. Studies conducted have shown that boys gain more academically from studying in co-...

English is widely regarded to be one of the most difficult languages to master. Despite its widespread use, both English-speakers and people learning English as a foreign language have complained about how hard it is to spell English words correctly. Although English is not alone in its...

The majority of the world's states have some form of welfare program meant to ensure the economic and social wellbeing of their citizens who may find themselves in dire economic straits, like unemployment, subsistence farming or landless day labour. The government may give financial benefits...

Affirmative action (or positive discrimination) is the use of different standards for assessing different groups of people, so as to help a group that has historically been at a disadvantage.[1][2] In an...

Creationism, often rebranded as Intelligent Design, is the belief that intelligent agency was involved in the creation and development of life on Earth. The view purports to be a science and to be deserving of consideration not only by the scientific community, but also students. For this reason...

The case: The Japanese New History Textbook controversy

A textbook entitled New History Textbook (Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho) was published by a committee consisting of conservative scholars in 2000, and was approved as a social science textbook for junior high schools by the ministry of...

In many countries children are required by law to attend school up to a specific age. When children reach this required age they then often have the choice to remain in education or leave in search of employment opportunities. Among those countries that have a school leaving age there is a wide...

Millennium Development Goal 2 targeted inequalities in primary education - setting an agenda of equality in opportunities to achieve universal primary education, for girls and boys, by 2015. In response to the development hype enrolment rates have increased across the developing world and...

2011 – 2012 has seen a great proliferation in MOOCs, or massive open online courses, which made university subjects available free of charge to anyone on the internet. MOOCs are generally provided by universities, such as edX by Harvard and MIT, but can also include non-university partners...

Poetry is an art form which uses the beauty and rhythm of language to produce emotions in a reader. It is a creative piece of writing that often has meanings and messages that appear hidden. Poetry is an ancient art form and dates back to the first human civilization in Sumer more than four...

Wherever the issue has emerged, whether it is in the inner city schools of America, the primary schools of Wales, or in health education programs in the developing world, the suggestion that condoms should be actively promoted as a solution to unwanted pregnancies has been controversial. This is...

In some countries, like the U.K., Japan, Hong Kong, and several African countries, school uniforms are worn in almost every school. In other countries, like France and Germany, school uniforms are only worn in a few schools, or even none. However, in some of these countries opinions are changing...

In 2008 Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Germany, surprisingly for a national leader visiting a country with a large number of Turkish migrants he declared assimilation a “crime against humanity” and argued that Turks in Germany should study in their mother...

National testing of schools requires schools to test their children every year to measure how much they have learned. The government only gives money to schools which do the testing. The goal of national testing is to compare students in different schools and give extra money to those schools...

This discussion starts from the point of view that sexual education classes should be given at schools. But does this mean that so-called “safe sex” should also be promoted within these lessons? Safe sex is the practice of sexual activity in a manner that reduces the risk of infection with...

All countries have mathematics as a key part of the curriculum for young children. Most education systems teach maths for quite a bit longer than that. In the UK, Mathematics is compulsory up to GCSE level (age 16) while in the USA it is often taught to the end of high school.

Universities produce an immense amount of information. For their students academics write lecture notes, create course guides, and put together bibliographies. They may well also record their lectures and any events they take part in. But teaching is not all that academics do. They often have to...

Developing countries have in the past two decades made progress in the global academic and scientific community, contributing more and more research as their economies and infrastructures improve. But they are still far behind, and as the pace of academic and technological development seems to...

In many countries, school attendance is mandatory for all children up to a specific age. Children often then have the choice of staying on at school for further education and possible preparation for university or college entrance, or leaving to pursue a job or professional training. In India...

In a landmark ruling, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Vernonia School District v. Acton that schools could randomly test student athletes for drug use, after a student, James Acton, was banned from trialling for his school football team without consenting to a test...

Bullying can be any form of behavior, physical or verbal, intended to berate, humiliate, scare, or harass another person. The behavior is usually repetitive, and can extend over a long period of time. Bullies are frequently in a position of power over their victims, either physical or social....

The question of the best way to raise children is one which is widely debated in all liberal democracies. It is also commonly believed that decisions regarding childcare should be left to parents in the private sphere of the home. Typically, states become involved in questions concerning...